Today I’ll be talking about how the second Balkan War and the July Crisis are significant event in history. I think we learn about the 1913 Balkan War and the 1914 July Crisis, because it gives us a better understanding of how the alliance system works, and how if a conflict is neglected it can turn into a bigger one, in this case WWI. These events are mostly remembered for being the root of WWI, because the July Crisis was a result of the second Balkan War not being completely solved, therefore leaving a tension between Austria-Hungary and Russia, the tension kept building up until the begging of WWI.

Second Balkan War (1913)

The Balkan War of 1913, is important because it shows how much of an important role imperialism played into the cause of WWI. During the Balkan War of 1912 Austria-Hungary and Russia were in a disagreement about who should get the Ottoman’s territory. The reason behind their interest in that land, was to expend their power and territory they had lost in previous battles. Countries with less power such as Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria made the Balkan League in order to take over the Balkan before Austria-Hungary. Imperialism is what brought those countries of a lesser power together to be able to fight back a greater country like Austria-Hungary. What started the second Balkan War, was Bulgaria declaring war to Serbia and losing it along with its territories in the Balkan. Almost all the actions made during any of the Balkan wars were based on imperialism, because all the countries who tried to gain territory in the Balkan wanted it to expend their power in the world. The only participants of the second Balkan War who didn’t want to expend their territory were: France, Britain, and Germany. Those nations were only backing up their allies to ensure their own protection in case they got attacked. Their involvement into that war shows that allies were really valued at that time. At the end of the second war there was still a lot of tension building up in between the two groups of alliances.

July Crisis (1914)

The July Crisis is an important series of events that happened each day leading to WWI. This event is very significant to WWI history, because it shows how the alliance system worked during war time, and how militarism is used to solve a bunch of little conflicts. On July 31, Russia had already mobilized its troops ready to go to war against Austrian who had declared war a few days ago to Serbia, Russia’s allie. This kind of quick response to Austria-Hungary’s war declaration could be described as militarism, because Russia doesn’t try to solve the issue between Serbia and Austria-Hungary in a diplomatic way, but rather go for war. July 31 could be an example of how alliance system works, but a better example of how alliances work is August 3 to August 12. Because Germany declared war to France then Britain declared war to Germany, like the Triple Entente agreed on. Austria-Hungary declares war to Russia, to protect Germany, like the Dual Alliance states that they should help each other out if one gets attacked by the enemies. France and Britain then declared war to Austria-Hungary to protect Russia. These war declarations tell us that in order for an allie to help, the other allie(s) must already be into war. Another example of militarism is August 3 when Germany invaded Belgium after being refused free-passage on the same day.

These two events are important depending on where and when a person has access to the events’ information. Because the information given might vary depending on the perspective the documents are written into. Like per example someone from Russia in 1919 after the war could write about the Balkan wars, and make Austria-Hungary sound like the nation to blame for WWI. When on the other hand someone who lives today could write about the Balkan wars without having to make a country look like the victim of another. And of course the reason why we have more access to information about WWI than 50 years ago is because we can get information from all perspectives very easily.